M. HOCKEY | Elis split games against QPac, Princeton

The No. 20 men’s hockey team (7–6–1, 4–3 ECAC) kicked off the second half of the season with a 1–1 showing at Ingalls Rink this weekend that showed two sides to the Bulldogs. After going down against Quinnipiac in a 2–1 loss on Friday, the Elis bounced back Saturday night by thrashing Princeton 6–2.

The loss to Quinnipiac on Friday could drop the Elis out of the national rankings for the first time this season. The Yale offense, which had been hot prior to the break and scored six goals in its first game following the holiday, had an uncharacteristically slow night and recorded only 25 shots against Quinnipiac netminder Eric Hartzell.

“We allowed them to block 23 shots, and [we] missed the net on 19 other shots,” said head coach Keith Allain ’80 to Yale Athletics. “It’s hard to score goals with shot execution like that. We have to execute better and gets shots through.”

Quinnipiac’s strong defensive effort kept the Elis off the board until about eight minutes into the third period when captain Brian O’Neill ’12 put away a power play goal to pull the Elis within one. After a pass from the stick of center Andrew Miller ’13, O’Neill tucked the puck under a sliding Hartzell for his team-high tenth goal this year.

But O’Neill’s tally would prove to be too little too late for the Bulldogs. The Bobcats took the lead at the end of a first period that saw them challenge Yale goalie Jeff Malcolm ’13 on several occasions. They came close on two power plays, which featured five Malcolm saves in total.

However, the third time would be the charm for the Bobcats. After Colin Dueck ’13 was put away for roughing, Quinnipiac blueliner Loren Barron hit the back of the net from the high slot for a 2–0 advantage.

“The three penalties in the early part of the game took some momentum away from us,” Allain said. “We played ok, but not well enough to get a victory.”

But the Bulldogs picked up the pace on Saturday night, recording 49 shots en route to a 6-2 victory against Princeton.

“I was really pleased with the way we played tonight,” Allain said. “I thought we played okay yesterday, maybe hoping to win. Tonight we played like we were going to ensure that we were victorious. We were winning races, getting the puck to nice areas and we went hard to the net.”

Although the Bulldogs controlled the run of play early in the first period, the Tigers struck first about nine minutes into the action. Malcolm knocked Princeton defenseman Michael Sdao’s attempt to a waiting Marc Hagel who fired a quick shot that beat Malcolm through the five-hole.

“It was an unfortunate start,” O’Neill said. “But I think that really sparked us even more, and we had the best part of our game after that goal, so I think it was a wakeup call for us which helped.”

Behind O’Neill, Yale kept pressing and responded a mere two minutes later. With a two-minute penalty expiring, Nicolas Weberg ’15 headed to the bench where Kenny Agostino ’14 quickly jumped on the ice. Within seconds of entering the offensive zone, Agostino emphatically finished a Miller offering to knot things up at one.

“We got fifty shots on net tonight, or close to it, and that was the big key,” O’Neill said. “We got a lot of pucks on net, a lot of traffic and we got goals because of that.”

With the crowd rocking, the Elis continued to pepper the Princeton net with shots. Almost five minutes later, forward Trent Ruffolo ’15 picked up a loose puck in the Princeton zone and immediately fired a wrist shot that beat Condon for the Yale lead.

After the Bulldogs gained the 2–1 advantage, they did not look back. Kevin Limbert ’12 finished a rebound from a Chad Ziegler ’12 shot and O’Neill scored on a power play for the eighth time this season en route to a 4–1 Yale advantage.

But Princeton would not die easily. With about 14 minutes left in the game, Princeton pulled its goalie after a Yale penalty to create a two-man advantage. About two minutes later, defenseman Derrick Pallis put a weak wrist shot past Malcolm from the point.

However, following the Princeton goal Yale put the game away with a goal from Miller and an empty-net finish from Ziegler.

After giving up 25 goals in the six games preceding break, the Bulldogs allowed only four goals in this weekend’s contests.